Earth that was what?
by HorseLoverTW
Summary: Firefly crew on the Hellmouth. What sort of future can these two groups make after the collapse of Sunnydale? Includes multiple pairings and hints of Buffy/Simon Tam. R
1. Welcome to the Hellmouth

Welcome to the Hellmouth

**Earth that was what?**

**Disclaimer: Both Buffy and Firefly are owned by Joss Whedon. I take no credit for them or their fabulous scripts and make no money…seriously don't, it's kinda sad. **

_A/N: Hi! This is my first response to a challenge, so I'm not exactly sure on how to go about this besides sticking to the parameters laid out in the challenge, "Earth that was what?" by __CambriaRass__. Since it wasn't specified, this story will take place after the Buffy series finale. Please ignore all of the comics as I haven't read them and won't be using them. Firefly will take place right after the events of 'Safe' where Simon and River were kidnapped. Any questions or comments sent via review will be addressed. Hope you enjoy! _

**Chapter 1: Welcome to the Hellmouth**

Simon sighed and his grip on River's narrow shoulders relaxed a little for the first time since they'd been rescued from nearly being burnt at the stake. They were alive, and safe. More than he'd thought possible a few short weeks ago. The Captain was a strange man, but he seemed to have a moral code. Now all Simon had to do was learn to understand that code.

Serenity must be set on autopilot, he thought as he and his sister rounded the dark corner and stepped over the door hatch into the sunny kitchen area, because there sat Wash, happily listening to some story Mal was telling from his usual spot at the head of the table. Zoe was busy holding Wash's hand, the grin on her face assuring Simon that she'd probably already heard this one before.

"So then Shepherd says to a Companion, 'Well, a good goat would do that.'" Mal was saying and all the crew laughed.

River glided away from Simon's side and delicately seated herself at the table. Simon saw Kaylee coming to sit down as well after helping herself to some of the leftover protein mush they'd been having for the past couple of days and remembered the debacle back on Jiangyin. He needed to work on his sensitivity… among other things.

Deciding that it might be prudent to smooth things over with the very sweet and very upset mechanic, who probably thought by now that he was the biggest snob in the Galaxy, Simon quickly went over to her seat and pulled out the chair for her.

He knew he was forgiven by the brilliant smile she sent his way and then things were easy. Rolls were passed around and laughter was present again and he felt he was accepted…one of the crew. And he knew as he saw them talk with River and pass her food and made jokes that they made sure to include her in and laughed when she stole a roll from Jayne's plate that River was not just a liability to them anymore, she was becoming everyone's little sister and everyone's responsibility to protect.

It was a warm, almost alien feeling to Simon. He couldn't remember the last time his own family had been so happy, so inviting. Well, they'd never be inviting exactly, but it didn't negate the feeling that he and River had finally found a place they could belong…

A thunderous BOOM!! shattered Simon's brief moment of contentment and he gripped the large table reflexively out of panic.

"Now little Kaylee, you told me that compression coil had a good nother' couple of months on it." Mal asked as he rose, "So _what_ is my ship doing fallin apart!?"

"Not sure Cap, but I'll go check her out!" Kaylee shouted behind her, already on her way out the kitchen and bounding toward the engine room.

From his seat, Jayne finished off a few more forkfuls before he asked, food still in his mouth, "Couldn't it just be them darn cows we had on here? Might of gunked up some inner workings er such."

Wash and Zoe rose, Zoe not even bothering to dignify Jayne's question with a response before she marched off to follow the Captain. Wash, all smiles vanished, told Jayne, "Yes, Jayne. The cows were of an evil race that sabotages ships with their cloven hooves when they're not too busy chewing their cud," and then he was out of the kitchen and away too, running in the opposite direction toward the cockpit.

"Ruttin cows… Wash don't know what he's talking about," Jayne said, finally finished with his plate.

"Are you going to join them anytime soon?" Simon couldn't help but asking the big man pointedly.

"When I please, Doctor man," Jayne grumbled, glaring at Simon. But then he seemed to realize that he was left alone with only the Doctor, Inara, and River, all of whom were staring very acutely at him. "…which I suppose, would be now. Ya'll best get to your rooms. Don't want Mal blamin me fer one of you bangin up your pretty little heads." And then he finally left.

"I don't care for staying in my cabin as the ship is possibly being rendered to shreds," Simon told Inara. "If you don't mind, how about we see if Wash has any news?"

"I agree. Kaylee will have enough on her plate with Mal and Jayne breathing down her neck."

When they made it to the cockpit, they found Wash in his usual seat, his dinosaurs spread asunder as he frantically toggled and jarred numerous buttons. It didn't seem to be going well.

"Anything we can do?" Simon asked tentatively.

Wash didn't look up. "No…uh… well, actually," he saw River was with them. "River, if you could go get the others. I think they need to be here for this."

River nodded. "You don't want me here. It's alright, I'll fetch them. The mouth will swallow us all anyway, down, down, down. From beneath us, it will devour. But don't worry, the mouth of hell is nice all year round."

"Uh…yea." Wash stuttered, dumbstruck. And then River left, gracefully running down the stairs and back toward the engine room.

"So what did you want to tell us, Wash?" Inara asked, recapturing the pilot's attention.

"I think anything I say after devouring mouth of hells are imminent is a pretty moot point, but we're heading right toward an energy field. Its energy levels are fluctuating with that of the ship's so I believe it's being formed by our own energy emissions."

"But Serenity doesn't emit energy, except when she's going for hard burn…" Inara trailed off, her beautiful face one of confusion.

"That's normally true, but that explosion must have jarred something loose. We're leaking bad and it's doing something funny out there, and not of the ha ha variety."

"What will this energy field do to us?" Simon asked, his heart pounding.

"Nothing good…" Wash said grimly as he tried yet another useless toggle. Simon looked out the windshield at Serenity's bow and glimpsed rays of light concentrated in a small area of nothingness directly in their path. The rays of light were forming different colors and shooting back and forth like falling stars. They were making their very own blackhole…

Spike was gone… and for the first time since she'd met him, Buffy had acknowledged that she'd loved him. She knew they'd probably never have that fire back, the heat that had consumed her upon her re-entry to life following her resurrection- the destructive web of need, lust and satisfaction that had engulfed them both in the wake of her numbness at being ripped from Heaven and cast back to the Hellmouth like a used rag doll- but the past couple of months spent with Spike had meant something to her. She'd been meeting the aged and matured version of his human side, William, and she felt that they'd gotten to re-know each other, to become friends, battle buddies, and even share in the occasional flare of affection toward one another. But it wasn't the 'I can't wait to rip your cloths off' sort of flare, more the 'I want to squeeze the sadness out of you until you're happy again and then hold onto you forever and ever' sort of affection. Like most of her relationships, Buffy found it strange and oddly comforting.

Standing over the crater that used to be Sunnyhell- as Spike had lovingly denoted the town- Buffy couldn't help but smile as she thought of how their latest, and possibly greatest, apocalypse had just been averted by William the Bloody going out in an angelic halo of self-sacrificing glory. This crater was a testament to the fact that Spike never did anything half-heartedly.

"Where we going now, B?" Faith asked.

"Where ever we're needed," Buffy replied at last. And it was true- the world was open to them now. Sure, there was another Hellmouth in Cleveland, but there were hundreds, if not thousands of new potentials out there, just waiting for someone to show them the way. The possibilities were endless.

Spike's final gift had been to set her free.

"Wait," Dawn said, gazing intently down at the belly of the smoldering crater. Just for a second, Buffy's heart skipped a beat and she thought that maybe Spike might have somehow rematerialized in some miraculous last act, but then Dawn pointed and exclaimed, "There's some movement down there! Quite a few by the looks of it!"

"But I thought the Ubers were done for? Plus, not like they're ready to open their own tanning salon, even if some of them did manage- highly unlikely by the by- to escape Spike's last act of mayhem and destruction." Xander said, his voice slightly pinched. And Buffy realized for the first time that Anya wasn't with them. Her heart found new reasons to ache, this time being Xander-shaped.

"Will?" Buffy asked her best friend. She didn't need to say anything else, Willow and her were long past the reading each other's minds, and that had been before she'd gone all witchy-woman.

"On it," Willow said, and though still exhausted from what could quite possibly be described as one of the most powerful spells ever cast, Willow muttered a quick incantation under her breath, allowing her binocular vision, in Buffy's estimation at least. Because that's what Will was doing- scoping out through her magical sights the figures Dawn's pristine 20/20 vision had spotted. "Yep," Willow informed them, her magical sight dispelling, "Looks like maybe nine or ten people. They look normal enough, but they're just standing there, completely dazed, like they don't know why they're standing in the middle of a big pile of rubble all of the sudden."

"And no blood or soot or obvious injuries apparent?" Giles asked.

"None that I could see."

"Well," Buffy said, once again finding her general's voice, "let's go see who's knocking this time."

"Sir?" Zoe asked, standing like the rest of the crew of Serenity in the middle of a very large, very recently made crater, "What the wuo de ma just happened?"

Mal looked left and right, scanning the area so quickly that Simon thought his head might spin off, before replying, "I don't rightly know…"

And none of them did really. They had all been in the cockpit, Wash retelling the others what had transpired, and then they'd hit the energy field. And now found themselves at the bottom of a big large bowl in seemingly the middle of nowhere. It figured.

"Jen dao mei," Simon said, voicing his thoughts. "Just when we're finally getting out of one scrape, it figures we'd wind up in a hole of another."

"Uh, I don't mean to out alarm any of you, but where exactly's my girl?" Kaylee asked, the fresh grease from the engine she'd just been frantically searching still smeared across her face. Only there was no engine anywhere, nor any sign of Serenity for that matter.

"Girl's got a point…where is that gorramit ship, Mal?" Jayne asked, his burly figure tense as he too scoured the rim.

"The scent of strawberries is strong- this is where they were first born," River said breezily, her eyes closed and a soft grin lighting her pale face.

While everyone else ignored her odd comment as usual, Simon turned to his little sister and asked quietly, "Where are we, River?"

She grinned up at him and it was like the government had never tortured her brilliant young mind into insanity. She was perfectly cognizant and frighteningly lucid. "Earth that was."

"Huh?" Mal asked, turning sharply to her at that, all other questions forsaken for the moment. "And just what does she mean by _that_?"

"I'm not sure…" Simon said, dreading the way River had spoken, as though for one instance she were completely aware of herself and her surroundings. What _had _she meant by that? Earth that was _what_?

"Our mother." River said to the gaping lot of them. She bent down and picked up a handful of the freshly unearthed soil and let it drop onto her feet, which were- as always, no matter how many times Simon told her not to- bare.

"River, honey," Inara spoke gently, "Whose mother?"

"Everything and everyone's."

"Well I'm glad she cleared that up," Wash said with a roll of his eyes, "Cause let me tell you, I was getting downright confu…"

"Hi, um…sorry to interrupt," a red haired young woman said… hovering in the air fifteen feet above them! They stared in amazement- well, all except River, who only glanced up as if it were a common occurrence. "Any of you happen to be privy with the what and the why you're down here at this juncture?"

"Uh…" was the most common response generated.

Mal, his captainy character forcing him to speak, said, "Well…miss…the truth of it is, we don't much know where we are. I'd kindly ask you, but I reckon you got your own business to attend to, what with that mighty fine flying of yours…" Inside, Simon knew the Captain was just fishing around to assess the level of threat the diminutive red-head posed.

"Can we skip to the part with the_ how_!?" Wash asked shrilly. "Because I personally am still at a loss as to how there's a woman FLYING in front of us!"

"Sweetheart," Zoe whispered to her husband, "Let's not piss off the nice flying woman just yet, okay?"

Unnoticed by anyone, River tapped her brother's shoulder and said, "Ask her what you asked me."

Still in awe of the spectacle before them, Simon sought out his voice and asked loudly enough to ensure the flying woman heard him, "Can you tell us where exactly we might be?"

She looked down at them oddly for a moment and then replied as she touched down lightly on her heels, "What's left of Sunnydale, California. Welcome to the Hellmouth."


	2. The Wheels on the Bus

Earth that was what

**Earth that was what?**

**Disclaimer: Both Buffy and Firefly are owned by Joss Whedon. I take no credit for them or their fabulous scripts and make no money…seriously don't, it's kinda sad. **

**Chapter 2: The Wheels on the Bus…**

"So let me get this straight," Wash asked as he and the rest of Serenity's crew sat in small, synthetically-drafted pseudo leatherback benches on board a large yellow transport of some sort. "We went through an inter-dimensional portal of some type and landed on… I can't even say it… EARTH!?" Zoe rested a hand on his shoulder and he took a deep breath to steady himself. "Really?"

A girl- no, a woman Simon realized; the jaded expression she wore all too easily assuring him she'd seen too much to still be a girl, though she couldn't even be as old as Kaylee- with blonde hair and a tiny, almost mal-nourished frame replied, "Pretty much. Where are you from again?"

Mal, who had been strangely quiet since their encounter with the sorceress, err…witch, shuffled over on his bench so he was nearer to the conversation and the aisle and said, "We're from a galaxy far far away and…"

"OH MY GOD!!" The man they'd called Andrew cried. He was still in a lot of pain, but somehow, he managed to pull himself to a sitting position and ask the startled captain excitedly, "Do you know Han Solo?!"

"Wha…?"

"I'm sorry," the dark-haired man with a patch over his eye said as he gently pushed the Andrew fellow back and covered his mouth. "He's in Sci-Fi remission."

But Andrew wasn't the only one in bad shape. A dozen girls were in just as serious a condition with nearly a dozen more with only slightly less severe injuries. The worst, by Simon's quick estimation at any rate, was the dark-skinned man in the seat just behind the driver's. He was critical and if the jarring didn't kill him soon, his loss of blood was sure to.

Looking around the hot and crowded antique transport at all the wounded and suffering, Simon couldn't help but wonder what prehistorical war they'd stepped into.

His fingers itching with the need to cure, sooth, and fix as many as humanly possible, Simon at last spoke up, addressing the diminutive blonde, "Umm…do you happen to have any medical supplies?"

She looked to him surprised, as if she'd just realized he was there and the full weight of her stare hit him. It was so…haunted. Just as tired and emotionless as River's…

"Can we get back to the who any of you are thing? Because I'm still a little lost on that." She turned her stony gaze back to Mal, as if instinctively knowing that he was their leader just as they knew she was theirs. "Is he even a doctor?"

Mal glanced at Simon. "Yes, and not too shabby a one at that…" He drifted off, unsure of what else to say or what to do next. Everyone seemed to be going without a chart, except for the blonde that was- that and the only older gentleman with them. He was the one driving the transport and appeared around Jayne's age only he didn't look like Jayne at all thankfully. He wore glasses and although he dressed in clothes like the rest of them- suited for blood and gore- he didn't pull them off naturally, suggesting to Simon that he was more of a teacher or possibly even the kindred spirit of a fellow doctor; an academic.

Jayne himself was steaming, indecision making him even more monkey-brained than usual. "Go HWONG-TONG! What the ruttin' hell are we doing and what the jung chi duh go-se dway is going on here!? We ain't been given any answers yet 'cept for some gorram bull about Earth that was!"

His eyes narrowing, Mal said in a steely voice even Jayne was forced to respect, "It's enough when I say it's enough, Jayne. And you will keep a civil tongue, especially in the presence of young ladies."

"Wow, what was that?!" Andrew exclaimed, trying in vain to sit up and see what was going on before the eye-patch man once again shoved him lightly to the bottom of the bench's worn seat.

"Chinese," a cultured voice came, shouted from the driver's seat.

"Thank-you G-man," a woman's voice called sarcastically from the front seat before she stood and began stalking back to where they were all seated in the back of the transport. "Now, doll-face," the small brunette said dangerously as she rounded on Jayne, slipping into the bench in front of Mal's public-relations disaster so she was only a few feet from him. She rested her arms on the seatback behind her and said languidly, "What the hell you doing speaking Chinese in a dump like this?" She finished with a wicked smile and Simon got the distinct impression that she was one of those girls his uptight mom would have considered 'bad news.'

"I ain't no doll-face you wahg-ba dan duh biao-tze."

"JAYNE!"

"Alright, alright!" Jayne muttered, throwing Mal his dirtiest look before he focused his glare once more on the smirking face of the doe-eyed dark woman. "But she better get out of my face before I break hers."

"Ooooh. Is that a promise sweet-cheeks? -'Cause I'd love a good excuse to crack your ugly jaw."

"Gorramit, Mal! Just let me hit her once, it'll do this broad wonders- I'm sure of it." Jayne grinned a grin as equally un-settling as the woman's and cracked his knuckles menacingly.

"Bring it, big man!" the woman shouted, unaffected by Jayne's size or muscles. But Simon saw something the others didn't- the woman body was not only compact and…well proportioned. It was also very taught and the slim muscles she possessed were tensed and ready. She was much, much stronger than they realized.

But before the two could lunge at each other and Simon's theory could be proven right, the blonde interceded. "That's enough, Faith. We don't have time for a fight after just defeating the First Evil." Faith didn't move. The blonde tried once more in the weariest voice Simon had heard yet, "And Wood is still up there, dying all by himself..."

Faith sunk at that and quickly made her way back to the front without a backward glance at Jayne.

"I'm Buffy," the blonde said suddenly from right beside Simon. He marveled at the speed she must have used to changed seats so fast, but then he was forced to marvel at the name she'd just produced as what she'd said finally sunk in. "Here you go," and she shoved in his hands a small plastic box. He carefully opened the lid and found several adhesive bandages, wound solvents, sutures, gauze, and one very primitive looking iodine-based soap inside.

"Is this all you have?"

"Fraid so. Some of the bandages have already been distributed but we'd certainly appreciate your help…"

"Simon," he supplied, extending his hand.

"Simon." She grasped it very professionally, like a resident had his first day as an intern and they shook. Her grip was frighteningly strong and he suspected Buffy and her darker friend Faith were of the same physical caliber.

"I'll get right to it."

He started with the front, the man called 'Wood' being his foremost cause to worry. He patched him up as best he could and made his way to the back of the transport, stopping at each seat and checking to make sure the inhabitants who weren't overtly wounded didn't have any other problems.

A few of the teenage girls with minor scrapes had concussions and as he neared the back where Serenity's crew and Buffy's… whatever they happened to be were, he noticed the blonde herself had a pretty nasty forehead gash. Why hadn't he seen it earlier?

Probably because he'd been too spooked with the entire situation to notice anything at all he reminded himself.

"Uh…Buffy?"

Looking up from her conversation with Mal she replied, "Yes?" and seeing him approach whispered, "How's Wood?"

"Oh, well, I stabilized him as best as I could, but I don't want to risk sutures until your transport stops. The jarring would only make the wounds messier." He knelt down in the aisle by her bench and took out the water bottle he'd borrowed from one of the girls named Rona and a gauze from the small medical kit. "If I may?" He asked, stretching up with the moistened gauze to her forehead.

She sat motionless before him, her gaze locked onto his; her expressionless face and vacant eyes giving away nothing.

Simon tried to ignore her stare and instead focused on using the so-called 'betadine' soap- the backwardness of these medicines fascinated him- to disinfect her cut. He tried to be gentle, knowing the tissue over the frontal lobe to be extremely sensitive, but she never flinched.

He felt the soft fabric of a skirt brush his back and a lithe figure seat itself behind him on the bench opposite to Buffy's.

"River, I thought you were going to stay with Inara," Simon said pointedly, not breaking a stride in his cleaning procedure and hoping River was cognizant enough to pick up his less than subtle hint to go away.

"This is your sister?" Buffy asked, once again startling Simon.

"Oh, umm…yes. This is my younger sister River. River, this is Buffy." According to his ever-present uptight upbringings, Simon would have then told River Buffy's last name and her status, but having neither to go on, he simply trailed off and continued with the next step, the delicate process of rinsing off the betadine's soapy residue while trying to keep Buffy's top from getting soaked. It was turning into quite the challenge….

The quiet melody of River's voice floated over Simon's shoulder as she said, "The dulcimer…the genuine article. You are her."

"Her who?" Buffy asked, at last tearing her eyes from Simon's face. As she did, she jerked her head upward. Conceding defeat, Simon laid the gauze down and gave up the floor, awkwardly pushing himself up and past her to the window seat and waiting for her to turn back to him so he could finish. His knees had been killing him in that position anyway.

"The Slayer."

All Simon had to go on was the fountain of blonde hair tied in a swift pony-tail at the back of her head, but the way her shoulders tensed and her voice darkened as she nearly growled, "Who are you?" was enough to know that River wasn't going to be making a new best friend anytime soon. Endearing as River was lately…

"A weapon, like you."

Buffy rounded on Simon. "What the hell is this? We don't need any more surprises on this bus!"

Simon raised his hands in defense and tried to say in what he hoped was a very soothing voice, "River's just a troubled girl. She's been through a lot… she doesn't mean any harm."

"But that's always what I seem to get," Buffy said with a sigh. "Oh well, finish up quickly doctor. I need to have a chat with the man up front."

Simon nodded and resumed with the solvent, resting his hand to her delicate cheek to steady his other as her eyes continued with their vacant search of his.

He hoped she'd be appeased with whatever she found.

"And you really believe their story?" Giles asked as he continued to clutch the steering wheel with both hands when the only thing before them was more road in the middle of yet more desert.

"I'm not picking up any vibes contrary to that. The doctor, who's by the way even more of a stiff than you were when I first met you in the library in your tweeds- you'd probably like the guy- is definitely a doctor."

"And how could you possibly know that? Anyone with any modicum of brains could patch up a few abrasions."

"His hands were soft."

"Buffy, do you ever think that maybe apocalypses find only us for a reason?" Giles asked as he took one hand off the wheel to rub the bridge of his nose beneath is weathered glasses.

Exasperating Giles was Buffy's other higher calling and it felt good to crack a smile for the first time in a very long and harrowing day. "Yea, I think they do."

At his silence, she continued, "They know the Scoobies throw the best post-apocalypse parties."

Drolly, Giles amended, "It's my queso-dip. I suppose I should have know better than to unleash that on the world."

Buffy and Giles grinned at each other. All the distrust and agonizing arguments they had endured over the past few weeks forgotten as the Watcher and Slayer remembered the reason they loved each other.

"I'm sorry Giles," Buffy said to her mentor.

To his prized pupil, Giles quickly said, "No, I should be the one to apologize. I was in the wrong, on just about everything."

"It doesn't matter. You were doing what you thought was right."

"So were you."

"I don't know, it was touch and go there for a while. Mostly with the winging it."

Giles shook his head. "That's not true and you know it. You were amazing, Buffy. I've never more proud."

Even though he was driving, Buffy gave him a tight hug around the neck and for a second, the yellow school bus swerved slightly to the left. She quickly straightened up and Giles straightened the bus.

Faith, only a seat back, opposite the bench with Wood in the first row, said, "Gettin a little sappy there, B."

"Shut up, Faith," Buffy said with no real enthusiasm.

Faith stepped up between Buffy and Giles and asked casually, "So, tell me we're not actually going to Cleveland, Watcher-man?"

…

"Are we?!"

"I'm not entirely sure where we should head. I was planning on stopping at the next major city with a hospital, but aside from that, I haven't much considered it. Any ideas Buffy?"

"England."

"What? Why?" Faith and Giles asked together.

"Spike gave us the freedom to start anew. Let's begin by rebuilding the Watcher's Council."

"Are those new people screwing with your head B, or are you just losing it?"

"I'm fine."

"Buffy, I must admit that I'm a bit confused by this request as well. The Council, to their deaths, proved a thorn in our, and especially your side. Why would you want to rebuild it?"

"Because we're rebuilding it the way it should have been. As an institution to aid, train, and care for Slayers." Faith continued to stare at Buffy as if she'd sprouted fangs but Giles seemed to be considering it.

"And a place to provide Watchers with the resources- in both training, books, and computer files- that they need in order to assist their assigned Slayers." Giles nodded and Buffy knew he was on board.

"It'll be a safe-haven and an excellent international base of operations," Giles said thoughtfully.

"Exactly. A place where new Slayers can feel safe and get the proper training and where our older recruits can be deployed and return to when their missions are over."

Faith rolled her eyes. "What about Cleveland, B? A Hellmouth is still a Hellmouth- even in Ohio."

"And it deserves are full attention," Buffy said rather evilly. "That's why, once we're set up, you and a team of your choice are going to be living there."

Faith backed away a step. "No way in hell."

"There's always a way," Giles said slowly.

"Absolutely!" Buffy agreed. "And we have faith…

The dark Slayer groaned. Maybe Cleveland would be better than prolonged exposure to B and her Slayerettes. Not to mention the munchkins.

Maybe she could even drag the new hottie doctor onto her 'team' to provide hospice care for Wood… now that idea had potential, Faith thought with a smirk as she and Buffy sat back down in the front to ground out the details with Giles. Willow and Xander would get filled in later. As for the kiddies and the newbies…well, they'd just have to learn.


End file.
